


The Barista, The Wardrobe and The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

by okemmelie



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22253218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okemmelie/pseuds/okemmelie
Summary: Emma finds a strange Wardrobe in one of the many rooms of Professor Hidgens' strange panic house. Excited about where it may lead, she drags Paul into it with her and the two of them discover something truly strange and beautiful.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	The Barista, The Wardrobe and The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

**Author's Note:**

> someone (maybe) requested paulkins + "we’re going to freeze to death", "please, I’m begging you" and "wanna see something cool?" from this https://helenmcwife.tumblr.com/post/189869888862/drabble-challenge tumblr post and all i could think about was narnia, so here's the beginning to a paulkins narnia au that i might continue because uhhh good times!

“Hey, Paul?” Emma lightly taps his shoulder and Paul looks up at her. There’s a big smile on her face and she’s undoubtedly excited about something.

He can’t quite place  _ what  _ it is, but he’s intrigued. “Yeah?”

“Wanna see something cool?”

Usually when people ask him if he wants to see something cool, they end up being wrong. They show him something that is definitely  _ not  _ cool and Paul ends up slightly disappointed.  _ However _ , this is Emma. “Sure.”

“Great! Come with me!”

And so he does. He gets up from his chair and leaves his book and his coffee in the Professor’s cozy little library to follow Emma down a hallway, up some stairs and down yet another hallway.

“So this place is pretty big,” Paul notes and Emma just nods. “You sure, you know where we’re going?”

That just makes her nod even more. “Absolutely. It’s right…” For another two doors, she doesn’t say anything. Then she kicks one open. “Here!”

She leads him into a small room. It’s pretty empty, save for a huge wardrobe and a dusty sheet tucked away in a corner. The wardrobe door is slightly open and Paul doesn’t trust Emma not to have looked through it. “Emma, what have you done? Was that sheet always in the corner?”

“Nope.” She opens the wardrobe door fully and takes Paul’s hand, which makes him stop asking questions as she drags him into the wardrobe.

Okay.  _ Okay _ . Full disclosure? It doesn’t make him stop asking questions completely, because they’re walking into a wardrobe and that’s just a bit strange in his opinion. It’s also bigger on the inside than he remembers it being from the outside. “Emma, where are you taking me? What’s going on?”

“Just… wait and see! It’s a surprise.”

Paul isn’t the biggest fan of surprises, but he’s a pretty big fan of Emma so he just sighs and keeps following her anyway. If she says it’s a surprise, he can only hope it’s a good one.

He swears he can feel the temperature drop with every step they take, but Emma tells him to stop being silly. It feels like they’ve been walking forever when the wooden structure and the surprising amount of coats suddenly stop surrounding them.

Instead of in Professor Hidgens’ house and wardrobe, they find themselves in what seems like the middle of a giant forest. Everything is covered in snow and ice and it suddenly makes sense to him why it felt like it was getting cooler.

“We’re in a forest. Why, uh. Why are we in a forest?”

Emma shrugs. “I don’t know. In the interest of being completely honest, I… didn’t exactly know where we’d end up. I just thought it was cool that it went on for so long, so I wanted to take you with me and… wow!”

Paul nods. He nods with his whole upper body and starts walking in circles around Emma, who’s just looking up and around. “Okay. Okay. Okay. What are we going to do? Are we just going to go back? We are just gonna go back, right?”

“No!” Emma shakes her head. “We’re gonna just go for a walk. No harm in that. We’ll just follow our footsteps back and we’ll be fine.”

“Emma, no. This is a bad idea. We don’t know what’s in here. We’ll go back, we can ask the Professor and then–”

“Paul.” She shoots out her lower lip and looks up at him with a pout that makes it hard for him to say no. “Please, I’m begging you. Can we just walk for a little bit?”

He sighs. “Of course.”

A little bit ends up feeling like both the longest and the shortest time in Paul’s life. On one hand, he’s with Emma and she seems so excited about their surroundings and it makes the whole trip seem shorter and oh so magical. But on the other hand, Paul is cold and all he wants to do is just turn around and go back to his coffee, even though it’s undoubtedly already cold by now.

Daytime turns to evening and Emma shows no sign of wanting to slow down, but Paul knows in his soul  _ and  _ in his head that this can’t be good. So he takes both of her hands and forces them to stop.

“Emma. I know this place is great and beautiful and what have you not, but… Emma? Are you listening? We need to turn around right now.”

She shakes her head. “No, Paul. Please. I wanna stay here. Can we  _ please  _ stay here?”

It’s frustrating. He wants to say yes because he doesn’t want to upset her, but this whole thing is starting to worry him. “Emma… it’s  _ really _ cold. I’m really cold. If we stay here much longer, we’re not going to make it. We’re going to freeze to death. Daylight hours, that’s fine, but we won’t make the night.”

“But I wanna stay. I wanna explore this place!”

“And we will. We’ll come back tomorrow, alright?” He’s not sure if he’s lying or compromising. He hasn’t made his mind up about that yet, but right now he just needs to get her out of here. Get both of them out of here. “Just… please? We still have a few hours of backtracking to do and I  _ promise  _ we’ll be back.”

She agrees. Thank God, she agrees. He lets go of one of her hands and they start following their own footsteps back through the forest.

When they’re about two thirds of the way back, it starts to snow and Paul feels good about his decision to force her back. He has no clue what he would have done without tracks to follow and he thinks that if they just pick up their pace a little, they can make it.

He’s right. It’s dark when they get there and their footprints are barely visible, but it doesn’t matter. He can see the wood and the coats and he feels so relieved that he hugs Emma.

“You sure we can’t stay?” She asks one final time.

He nods. Then he takes her hand again and leads her back through the wardrobe and out in the small, almost-empty room and he kisses the top of her hair before returning to the library and his book.

A lot of strange things have happened today and maybe the fact that his coffee’s still warm shouldn’t be what unsettles him the most, but it is.


End file.
